Paper info

Conceptualising communications strategy from a relational perspective

Kirsti Lindberg-Repo

The paper was published at the 18th IMP-conference in Perth, Australia in 2002.

The present article introduces a new framework for managing customer-perceivedvalue through communication processes between a buyer and a seller of a service firm.Recognizing the importance and benefits of successful communications with customersas a fundamental issue in managing relationships is of key importance for the servicefirm. It is argued that communications strategy has to be placed as an initial part of thedecision making rather than first developing a strategy and then communicating it. Thisarticle argues that communication management needs to be one of the first issuesconsidered in developing any kind of relationship strategy as customers' considerationsof value take place through communications. This is especially the case within serviceindustries where the product is the communication. This paper presents a new tri-modalcommunication process of how communication strategy can be created to better meetthe different relational stages of service firms' customers.